Saratoga News

Cover Story

Photograph by Jennifer McLain

Homes in Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans, La., remain vacant and untouched more than seven months after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Helping Hands

Volunteers from the United Methodist Church travel to Mississippi to aid hurricane victims

By Jennifer McLain

Hurricane season begins in 54 days. It's not like Mississippi residents don't know that. They're the ones counting. But they still have work to do on their homes, in their cities and in their neighborhoods. After Hurricane Katrina hit, it left many without shelter, without cars and without money.

Residents in Pascagoula, Miss., on the Gulf Coast, are reminded daily of the hurricane. Whether it's waking up in the FEMA trailer that sits in the yard in front of their uninhabitable home, fishing on a pier where antebellum homes used to stare over their shoulders or driving through the city with mounting piles of trash, Katrina's mark is everywhere.

The residents, however, are rebuilding, and they are not alone in their efforts. Pascagoula Mayor Matthew Avara, like dozens of other residents, doesn't offer thanks to the government for assistance, though. They are thankful for the thousands of volunteers who have traveled to their city of 26,000 to help them rebuild their homes.

On April 1, that is just what 30 volunteers, sponsored by the Los Gatos United Methodist Church, were there to do.

So far, Los Gatos has sent volunteer groups, donations and equipment to Pascagoula, and the town is one of nine municipalities in the country that have adopted it as a sister city to help during the time of rebuilding. Community leaders in Los Gatos identified it as being similar to the town in size and somewhat in character.

Well, maybe it was similar before the hurricane.

Before Katrina, Pascagoula City Manager Kay Kell says the city would have music in the park, similar to Jazz in the Plazz in Los Gatos. Million-dollar homes lined the spectacular view on the Gulf Coast, similar to those nestled in the Los Gatos foothills that boast views of the Santa Clara Valley.

But the Pascagoula of today would be more similar to the Los Gatos of 1989, after the earthquake left buildings demolished and spirits crushed.

It took time to rebuild Los Gatos after the earthquake. Some say the earthquake helped the town redevelop, which is what Pascagoula leaders are hoping to do with their city. But that type of work needs time, money and volunteers--which is why the 30 volunteers from the Los Gatos United Methodist Church were there.

Arrival

Hovering over hurricane-ravaged cities in Mississippi, where roofs have been replaced by blue tarps, the Los Gatos volunteers get a sneaky suspicion they are not in Kansas anymore.

When they land in Gulfport, Miss., on April 1, they know things are different.

It's not just the occasional Confederate flag, or the brick church on what seems like every other corner, or the constant singing of the mockingbirds.

And it's not just the Southern twang, or how drivers wave as pedestrians walk by, or that grits can be substituted for hash browns.

In a place that is known for sweet potato pie, deep fried okra and crawfish, Mississippi's bayous and muggy weather aren't the reason for culture shock. It's the traces left behind from Katrina. It's the occasional boat spotted inland with water about 100 yards away. It's the billboards encouraging its residents to rebuild. And it's the homes spray-painted with a message so FEMA won't demolish them.

But for the Los Gatos volunteers, this is why they came, for a chance to help those who need it most, an opportunity to participate in philanthropy after not being involved in it for so long and the chance to change their perspectives on life.

Marvin Ruebsamen, a member of the Los Gatos Rotary and the volunteer coordinator at Good Samaritan Hospital for 28 years, understands the need for volunteers. Now that he is retired, he decided he wanted to "turn the tables," and help the Pascagoula residents rebuild their lives.

Maureen Forrester, who attends the Methodist church, received a letter one day informing her of the trip. She says she got an itch to go and listened to her instincts.

"I said, 'I don't know what this is, but I have to do it,'" she recalls while lying on her cot after working all day in Pascagoula. Part of the reason, she says, is that her late husband lived in New Orleans, and she felt a connection with that part of the country. "I just knew I had to go."

Samantha Ince, a Los Gatos resident, says she found out about the group from an article in Los Gatos Weekly-Times, and wanted to help. It turns out that the semi-conductor firm she works for in San Jose gives paid vacation time for volunteer work.

Besides having different motivations, the volunteers come from different denominations and religious backgrounds, which proves not to divide, but to unite the group.

The team is led by Tom Carson of Los Gatos, a retired sales vice president and a member of the Methodist church. Carson is calm, witty and knows what to say to make people feel good.

"Tom is a good guy," volunteers say throughout the trip.

The volunteers are assigned to different vans and arrive on different flights, but all on the same day. The first group that arrives at the Eastlawn Methodist Church in Pascagoula is excited. They happily talk to whoever is around, despite their 6 a.m. flight. They enter the gym at the church, their home for the next 10 days, and are greeted by the aroma of ripe bananas.

Boxes of bananas were donated to the church for the volunteers, as well as tubs of peanut butter and boxes of corn flakes and powdered milk. Thousands of volunteers cycled through the church, coming from as far away as California, Kentucky, Connecticut and New York. This was the story for many of the local churches, and Pascagoula residents all agreed that it is the volunteers who are making the rebuilding a reality.

Because of volunteers, Hugh and Vicki Freeman, who live down the street from the church in Pascagoula, were able to re-roof their home. As Vicki Freeman waters the flowers that a group of volunteers donated and planted, she explains that her home, which was remodeled just before the hurricane, was 6 feet under water.

Now, they have to start over again.

"I thank God for sending these volunteers," Vicki Freeman says. "I've never seen anything like this in my life. Complete strangers coming to help us. I thank them all."

The Los Gatos volunteers are anxious to start working. But they will not get going until Monday. Until then, they have time to get settled in, see the sights and prepare for a trying week.

Road trip

Jack and Susan Little quickly befriend fellow Los Gatos volunteers, Ince, a 6-foot-11 former college basketball star, and Christy Disbrow, a 5-foot-11 young-at-heart type. They opt to use their free day to go to New Orleans. Not knowing what to expect, they quickly pack swimsuits, cameras, towels and pants and jump in the car. Jack Little takes the wheel, and the two-hour road trip begins.

As New Orleans draws nearer, the evidence of the hurricane becomes more apparent. A McDonald's sign is twisted, as if a giant squeezed it with its bare hands. Roofs are pulled off. Steeples of churches lay on the lawns. Shopping centers are deserted.

Pascagoula is not destroyed--not compared to parts of New Orleans.

A drive through Jefferson Parish, which borders the gulf, is eerie. Windows are shattered, homes are spray-painted to indicate if there were any bodies found inside, cars are abandoned. A street with homes that would have fit well in Los Gatos and Saratoga is now empty, save for the pile of trash sitting outside of each yard. A toilet, clothes, full bottles of Gatorade, a typewriter and a stuffed animal are spotted on the driveway of a home.

But it is the stillness in the air that is the creepiest. Unlike in Pascagoula, there are no happy shrieks of children playing, no gentle rumble of the television. No sounds of life, because there is no life.

Just ruins. It's like driving through a war zone. A four-story brick senior housing center is empty, reminiscent of barracks.

The drive through Jefferson Parish is numbing, and questions overwhelm the four Los Gatos volunteers touring the city: "What would I do in this situation? Would I return? Would I start over? What if my neighbor didn't start over?" they ask.

In New Orleans, a chat with a street vendor helps Disbrow understand the sheer horror of the experience.

"He says that it smelled of rotting flesh for weeks," Disbrow says as she walks through New Orleans.

But as the sun shone, the four snapped pictures of the notorious Bourbon Street and strolled through the street market, and Susan Little even got recruited by a street performer for a Kodak moment. Parts of the downtown still had soul, as families sat to listen to the different musicians that flooded the area.

This is the New Orleans that folks imagine.

Mayhem, looting and thousands of deaths followed the hurricane that caused millions of dollars worth of damage. But on that Sunday afternoon, everything appeared to be as it should be.

But drive just blocks away from downtown, and the destruction is real. Once again that warm feeling is replaced by the sight of white FEMA trailers, trash and deserted streets.

"You could see the water lines on the garage door," Susan Little comments.

"I wonder what they will do to prepare for the next hurricane?" Disbrow asks, the first of several times she asks the question.

Unlike the two-hour car ride to New Orleans from Pascagoula, the ride through Jefferson Parish was jokeless and silent, except for the observations, questions and occasional, "Can you stop the car? I want to take a picture."

So an experience in New Orleans put things in perspective for the Los Gatos volunteers who opted for a road trip instead of a church service. When they returned to Pascagoula, things didn't look quite as bad. People were rebuilding, and now they would be part of that effort.

Weekend is over, time to work

It's 6 a.m., April 3. The stiff cots, the air conditioner that was on full blast all night long and the sounds of snoring made a night of well-rested sleep impossible. But the early birds start to get up. With about 15 women in one room, and the 15 men in another, they shuffle to get ready and downstairs for breakfast at 7 a.m.

At least there is coffee. And bananas.

The volunteers shovel in breakfast, find their assignments, grab their tools and hop in the car. Time to work.

Carson, in the meantime, goes to different sites to scout out the future work that will be tackled by the volunteers.

Carson's first stop is the home of Pascagoula resident Dustin Johnson. He's lived through five hurricanes, and he never expected to go through one like Katrina. Because his house was demolished and flooded by the hurricane, he, his wife and children are living with his father. Carson stops by Johnson's house to inspect the damage. As soon as he walks in, Johnson starts talking about his living situation, about his grandfather who received two Purple Hearts and about his gratitude to the volunteers.

Next stop is Pat Fuljhan's home. Fuljhan, who has moved out of Pascagoula 12 times but returned after each move, rode out the hurricane with her brother in her attic. Four cars flooded. After losing every piece of furniture except for a dining table and armoire, she has been able to fix up her house with the help of church volunteers.

"It doesn't really matter if there are bumps or cracks on the walls," she tells Carson, "as long as there are walls."

Carson takes note, and returns with the information to the church. He will later assign the home to some of the volunteers.

Then, there is the home of Hattie Mae Richardson, who lives in Moss Point, a neighboring city to Pascagoula. United Methodist got a call from Richardson, saying that she needed some help. That's how it's done. The organizers at the church get walks-in or a call from residents, are told about the work that needs to be done on the homes, and then pass out the assignment to the volunteer groups.

At Richardson's property, it's not her home that needs the help; it's the second house on the property that her grandson will move into. Carson knocks on the door, and there's Richardson, who was just heading out to the doctor.

"Oh, I'm so glad you caught me," she says with a Southern drawl. "I was just out the door."

Richardson asks Carson if he's been to the South before.

"I grew up in Tennessee," he replies as they walk to the house. At first glance, the house looks as if it just needs a fresh coat of paint--Richardson adds that she wants off-white, the trim replaced and new cabinets.

"What do you think of that?" she asks Carson.

Richardson knows just what to say to get Carson to agree. What she really wants are the cabinets to be replaced; hers are rotting, crooked and don't close. Carson is not so sure there will be enough time to do all the work she is requesting, but Richardson doesn't take Carson's indirect "no" for an answer.

Well, she does on the day she met Carson, but she eventually changes his mind. Volunteers speculate Carson was bribed with Richardson's sweet potato pie, but he jokingly denies it.

Carson knows that this project is no easy one, and when he goes back to the church after dinner to pass out projects, he warns the volunteers of what's to come at Richardson's house. But, just like Richardson's home, there is more than meets the eye with much of the damage in the city, because 90 percent of Pascagoula was flooded.

As Carson makes his rounds through the city, inspecting what needs to be done at each of the houses, volunteers are working. Half of the crew is working at Johnny Walker's home, and the others are scattered at sites throughout the city.

After a day of working, the Los Gatos volunteers, along with 60 volunteers from Michigan, Kentucky and Connecticut, return for dinner. Rick Aaron, a Los Gatos volunteer, chose to work in the kitchen. This was his second trip to Pascagoula, and he wanted the other volunteers to have the chance to experience what he did.

His duty in the kitchen includes preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner for almost 100 people, as well as cleaning up after them. As the volunteers stagger into the gym, they are met with cafeteria type food--salad, turkey and rice. For dessert, pudding with bananas.

After dinner, Carson makes his rounds to the Los Gatos volunteers.

"Meeting at 7 in the room across from the bathroom," he says. That's where volunteers will have a devotional and receive their assignments.

And that's when Carson scares the volunteers about what's to come.

"The house needs scrubbing," he says of Richardson's house, as the volunteers exchange glances. Turns out, the house needed more than scrubbing, but with music blaring from Ince's iPod, the volunteers get the job done.

After the meeting, the volunteers are still psyched. They play ping-pong and board games and chat. Lights out at 10:30 p.m. And a new day begins.

Reflective thoughts

This was the routine for 10 days. They took a vacation from their job or duties from home to help 14 families. One family moved in from their trailer into their restored home.

One by one, day by day, normalcy is being restored to Pascagoula with the help of volunteers such as those from Los Gatos.

The volunteers returned to their comfortable beds, a room without 15 others sleeping next to them, and, of course, to the rain on April 11.

For Jack Little, he walked away from the trip realizing that he is his "brother's keeper," he says. He now understands what happens to real people when a disaster hits, and that there is still so much work to be done.

And he got the opportunity to connect with people on more than a superficial level.

"Most of the time we meander throughout life, tending to the daily routine," he says after the trip. "There is no place more sacred to a family than their home. Helping to get families back in their homes was extremely gratifying."

For Ince, she walked away from the experience with a broader connection to the Los Gatos community, a reminder of the importance of the basics in life and a lesson in keeping things in perspective without "sweating the small stuff," she says.

"I had braced myself for a difficult journey of compromise, compassion and giving, but I returned feeling enlightened, rewarded and completely fulfilled," she says.

And for Carson, who says that he is always humbled by what he finds on these projects, one of the most meaningful parts of the trip was that a group of strangers could work together for a common goal.

"There were no egos in Pascagoula," Carson says. "Only people trying to help other people."

Pascagoula Mayor Matthew Avara can appreciate that.

"We are truly grateful to Los Gatos," Avara says, "to the town, to the government, to the volunteers. For people that don't even know us, it is very heartwarming. I just hope that our residents remember the help for the country's next disaster."

And as they scratch off the days until the next hurricane season begins, no one knows disaster better than the residents of Pacagoula.